11:09 am, August 5, 2020
Japanese car giant Honda has reported an 80.8bn yen (£583 million) fiscal first quarter loss, as sales tumbled between April and June.
Sales of Honda models were particularly hit in the US, Japan and India during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and the 80.8bn yen is a reversal from the 172bn yen (£1.2bn) profit the previous fiscal year.
Quarterly sales dropped 47 per cent to 2.1 trillion yen (£15.3 bn).
Executive vice president Seiji Kuraishi told reporters in a press conference that sales and profits are expected to rebound.
He said: ‘Of course, uncertainties remain about the coronavirus, but much of the negative impact was caused by the difficulties in production and sales that came from a lockdown.’
The pandemic has made Honda bolster its online sales and reaffirmed the need to reshape its operations, said Kuraishi.
The company said it is projecting a 165bn yen (£1.2bn) profit for the fiscal year through to March 2021.
Honda was able to maintain an operating profit in its motorcycle division for the latest quarter, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the overall losses.
It expects to sell 4.5m vehicles for the current fiscal year, down from 4.79, vehicles in the fiscal year that ended in March, and markets like China – which have started to recover – are still very important to Honda, the firm said.
The news comes after General Motors announced it lost 806m US dollars (£617m) from April through to June, and big rival Nissan, still reeling from a scandal surrounding its former executive Carlos Ghosn, racked up a 285.6bn yen (£2bn) loss and announced plant closures in Spain and Indonesia.
Toyota will report its results on Thursday (Aug 6).
Volkswagen Group posts 1.4bn euro loss in first half of 2020
PSA Group reports surprising profit in first half of 2020
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